


ribbons undone

by misura



Category: Pegasus - Robin McKinley
Genre: Awkward First Times, No Plot/Plotless, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-26
Updated: 2017-11-26
Packaged: 2019-02-10 02:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12902499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Nobody's found out about the flying,Ebon pointed out.Nobody'll find out about this, either. You're being a human.Iama human,Sylvi said.





	ribbons undone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [novembersmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/novembersmith/gifts).



Ebon's nose brushed the inside of Sylvi's thigh. The sensation made her shiver.

_Are you **cold**?_ Ebon sounded a little annoyed but also, Sylvi thought, a little nervous.

If humans were not allowed to even touch the pegasi, how much more forbidden would it be to do something like this? And yet it did not feel wrong, merely strange - and right.

_Who cares about stupid human rules, anyway?_ Ebon asked. _Besides, right now, it's me who's touching you, not the other way around, so it doesn't matter any way._

Sylvi knew that it did matter. If anyone ever found out about the flying, that would be very bad already. If anyone ever found out about _this_ , that would be much, much worse.

_Nobody's found out about the flying,_ Ebon pointed out. _Nobody'll find out about this, either. You're being a human._

_I **am** a human,_ Sylvi said. No matter how much she might wish sometimes to have wings and be able to fly, when she woke up every morning, she knew such things would only ever be possible in her dreams.

In reality, she would always be what she was now: a small, clumsy stick figure, stumbling around on two feet, ugly and graceless.

Ebon flicked his tongue against the skin where his nose had been before.

This time, Sylvi felt the shiver through her whole body. It didn't quite go away, either, as if her body knew that this was only a beginning, the start of something. That there would be more yet to come.

_You worry too much._

_Maybe you don't worry **enough**_ , Sylvi thought. She wasn't sure that she'd meant to 'say' it, but with Ebon so close and with the memory of what it had felt like, to have him touch her in such an intimate place, it had become different to separate talking from thinking.

_I'll hear you either way._ Ebon sounded a bit smug now.

_Yes,_ Sylvi said. _I know._ Wasn't that why she felt closer to Ebon than anyone else, even her family, her father and her mother and her brothers? To them, she could only talk using words - human words.

_Still, if I do anything wrong, you have to **tell** me, Syl._ All the smugness had gone again.

Sylvi suddenly realized that, like her, Ebon had never done anything even remotely like this before. True, even if he had laid with - ( _pegasi don't lie down for this; that's humans,_ Ebon interjected), even if he had made love to another pegasus ( _which I don't see why I should want to, when you're the one I'm bonded with, and none of them are particularly pretty or have hands like you do_ , Ebon said) - even if he had done something similar before, it could not have been _that_ similar.

As for herself, it was hard to imagine her wanting anyone but Ebon to -

_Syl?_

It made her feel a little sick and a lot embarrassed, to imagine showing herself like this to any human boy. She knew - she'd always known that as a princess, one day she would be expected to marry someone, but she'd not once looked at anyone and thought to herself that this would be someone she wouldn't mind getting married to.

_Syl!_ Ebon flicked his tongue against the soles of her feet.

Sylvi giggled. She couldn't help herself.

Ebon whuffed, back to being pleased with himself. _Don't think I'm not nervous, too._ His 'voice' sounded serious, though. _But we decided that we were going to do this, and unless you've changed your mind, I think maybe we should just go ahead with it and see how it works out. If we don't like it, we can simply forget it ever happened._

Sylvi knew there was not a single moment she had spent in Ebon's company that she wanted to forget. Even when there had been bad things happening at the same time, even when Fthoom had been trying to convince everyone that what existed between her and Ebon was somehow wrong, something bad and unnatural rather than something true and beautiful, even the memories of those moments, she wouldn't want to trade for anything in the world.

Ebon took a lock of her hair in his mouth and gently pulled at it.

_I haven't changed my mind,_ Sylvi said. She wondered if she should mention that to humans, hair-pulling wasn't considered a sign of affection. Among pegasi, of course, it was the equivalent of a kiss.

_I know humans are strange about hair-pulling,_ Ebon said. _You don't like it?_

Sylvi considered. She suspected that maybe Ebon was teasing her a little, but also that he was doing it to help her - to help both of them get less nervous, less tense.

_I appreciate the sentiment._

Ebon snorted. Sylvi felt his breath in her hair. It made her want to giggle again, a light and happy feeling bubbling up from her stomach to fill her whole body.

Ebon blew at her hair again, more deliberate this time, like it was a game they were playing.

Sylvi got up and reached out her hands. _Down,_ she demanded. Her legs wobbled.

Ebon snorted again, but then she had her hands tangled in his manes, and she felt his body shiver the same way hers had, when he had put his head down between her legs.

Compared to that, finger-brushing his manes and stroking the skin of his neck felt -

_Don't stop,_ Ebon said.

_Of course not,_ Sylvi said, stepping closer, until their bodies were touching. Ebon dipped one of his wings to put around her, making her feel like right now, in this moment, the world consisted of nothing more than her and Ebon, like there were no other humans or pegasi or rocs or norindours. No Fthoom, with his hateful, poisonous words. No Danny, and no Sword. _I like this._

Ebon whuffed. _I like this, too. But later, after I've - I'd like to try the thing where you lie down and I use my tongue on you again, later. If you want to._

_I want to,_ Sylvi said, feeling the way her body seemed to flush all over at the idea.

_See?_ Ebon said. _You were worried for nothing. We're making this work just fine._

_I was never worried about **us** ,_ Sylvi replied, and it was true - as true as Ebon's statement earlier: that nobody had ever caught them at going flying together.

This would simply be one more secret the two of them would have to keep from everybody else.


End file.
